• Stockmarkets around the world are booming. In recent weeks, those in America, Europe and Japan have surged to record highs, with spectacular results from Nvidia adding fuel to the fire. One of our cover packages this week asks a simple question: how high can markets go? In the short term they may be supported by a strong American economy, which is producing healthy results across a range of industries—not just in firms connected with AI. In the long run, however, there are fewer reasons for optimism.
• Our other two covers this week are about forthcoming elections in India and Britain. The cover in Asia looks at India’s north-south divide, which will be a defining issue in the country’s election in April and May. The rich south is where you will find the slick new India, with its tech unicorns and manufacturing hubs. But Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party gets a low share of its votes from there, instead relying on the poorer and more populous north. Now Mr.Modi and his party are on a mission to woo the south. Will they succeed?
• Our cover in Britain highlights our new interactive build-a-voter tool, which enables you to choose eight characteristics of British voters, from age and sex to education and region, and see the chance of each cohort voting for specific parties. Among other things, our analysis of nearly 100,000 voters shows that young Tories are an endangered species. In the most recent election, the crossover age, at which voters were more likely to vote Conservative than Labour, was 45. At the next one it will be 68, according to our data. You can play with the tool, and share the results, here.
Edited By
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief